


Flame and Shadow

by DreamersEclipse



Series: Kiss Me Kill Me [1]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Act 3, Angst, Drabble, M/M, challenge, handers - Freeform, poets of the fall - Freeform, where do we draw the line
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-27
Updated: 2015-09-27
Packaged: 2018-04-23 17:31:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4885555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DreamersEclipse/pseuds/DreamersEclipse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was anticipating the feel of a blade sliding into the flesh between his shoulder blades. A stab in the back like he had done to Hawke.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flame and Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Series re-posted from FF.net. None of the stories in this series are directly related unless I mention such. Each piece is its own.

There was a dance of flame and shadow in the street. The smell of smoke and burning cinder- he randomly noted how the smog coming from Lowtown was non-existant with so much fire cleansing the air and sending the pollutants skyward in black clouds that made the stars disappear.

He could recall spending many of his nights cold, starving and scared that the Templars would drag him back to the Tower any day but at least he had the night sky. The sky was something he loved and he couldn't understand why no one else appreciated such a marvel that they got to look up at every day of their lives. How one look at the expanse of never ending stars could cure his soul and one night laying in the grass of a large open field bloody and bruised from a particularly rough escape he couldn't help but think, 'This is what freedom is.'

Off in the distance he could hear screaming. It didn't matter who it was that was letting loose such blood curdling sounds. Mages dying by Templar hands or Templars dying by mage hands…or civilians caught in the crossfire. They were all guilty. Every single one of them.

His insides were tearing themselves apart but he couldn't regret it. Wouldn't let himself because he knows that he'd do it a hundred times over if it provoked the change that Thedas needed. He couldn't feel ashamed of his actions even if millions of innocents blood spilled on his hands, which it has and which it will.

'What were a few more deaths?' He reasoned to himself. 'Now the other side can finally suffer the causalities we have.' It made him feel sick, these thoughts. Anger and indignation churning inside of him tearing his thoughts back and forth from guilt to pride and he wasn't sure if they were both his emotions or one of them belonged to Justice or neither of them and of those which would be the worst.

He heard Hawke's footsteps behind him and he braced himself for a stab in the back. A stab in the back like he had done to the love of his life, the only person in existence who took him for all his faults and told him he was still beautiful and worthy of love. It broke his heart to do this but his heart meant nothing compared to the lives of all mages.

Instead of the sharp pain of a knife sliding into the flesh of his lower back he found himself being hugged as if he were some sort of anchor. Which made no sense because he was anything but stable.

"Where will we draw the line, Anders?" Hawke whispered quietly in his ear – a voice that for the first time ever sounded unsure.

Anders couldn't answer and his shoulders sagged in the embrace as he sobbed silently with tears running down his gritty cheeks.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "Where Do We Draw the Line" by Poets of the Fall. If you love Handers, check them out; they were made for this pairing and even just this world.


End file.
